Come to any marketplace in the city and it’s unlikely that you’ll miss similar-sounding names of shops. For example:
Chhaya Stores
New Chhaya Stores
The New Chhaya StoresDhakeswari Bastralaya
Adi Dhakeswari BastralayaGuinea Emporium
Guinea Emporium & Sons
…and so on.
If you inquire, you’ll know each cluster of similar-sounding closely located shops has the same original owner. As generations progressed, the original business got divided, but the successive owners would not let go the ‘brand name’. Which is why you get to see multiple shops clutching to it, never mind that makes no difference in the minds of shoppers.
If you feel the name-clutching syndrome is prevalent only among shop-owners, here is the news that even school-owners too have it too. Read this story, Schools jostle for space.
It goes like this. In Kidderpore, on Kolkata Port Trust’s (KoPT) land comes up the school, Arya Parishad Vidyalaya (APV) in 1935. In 1994 APV completes a new building with Rs.10-lakh grant from KoPT. Ram Payare Ram, the local member of legislative assembly (MLA), who played active role in APV’s 1994 endeavor, soon parted ways and started another school in the same campus.
The new school has now come to be known as Modern Arya Parishad Vidyalaya (MAPV). Surprisingly, MAPV has no recognition from any higher education board, yet has 1200 students on its rolls from I to X. News reports say, thanks to the MLA, there is even a political party office in the campus.
All this only suggests that when personal feud and ego go beyond a limit, they affect other people and vitiate the society. Whether this small incident, or Mamata Banerjee’s 48-hour bandh call, the game of one-upmanship continues to be the bane of Bengal.
One recalls Rabindranath Tagore’s famous saying:
sat koti santan-ere hey banga jononi
rekhechho bangali kore, manush koroni!!
Ram – might is everything! [Picture source]
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